Friday, December 28, 2012

A Director Continues His Quest
By DENNIS LIM | December 27, 2012
Source: NY Times

“THE party’s definitely finished, but you’re sort of left to do the dishes,” the director Paul Thomas Anderson said the other day as he walked a visitor through the spacious ranch house in this city’s Encino section that served as his production base and editing facility for his latest film, “The Master.”

With the movie’s release months behind him, his staff was down to a handful of people. The main order of business for the moment was the preparation of vegetarian tacos for lunch, but there were still loose ends to tie up for “The Master.” Reels of celluloid, packed in rows of boxes, filled a room, awaiting transfer to a storage vault. On a kitchen table sat a stack of mock newsletters produced for the film’s Oscar campaign, rave reviews in the form of a religious pamphlet titled “The Cause Footpath.” Work was in progress on the DVD release; one major supplement will be a 20-minute sequence of outtakes that Mr. Anderson edited together in the trancelike style of the film.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

In a fantastic interview with the New York Times today, PTA dropped some news about his next project "Inherent Vice" stating that it would be a more faithful adaptation than "Oil!" was and that he hopes to shoot next year.

His next project, which will take him into another chapter of the century, the late ’60s and early ’70s, is an adaptation of “Inherent Vice,” the 2009 novel by Thomas Pynchon. The book is a stoner private-eye saga, and Mr. Anderson has found an invaluable “research bible,” he said, in the underground comic strip the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

This is the first authorized adaptation of a Pynchon work, which suggests that Mr. Pynchon, famously reclusive, is cooperating in some fashion. But Mr. Anderson, a fan of that author since his teenage years, declined to speak on the record about him and seemed loath even to utter his name. “I would get dangerously close to betraying trust,” he said.

While “There Will Be Blood” was inspired by Upton Sinclair’s “Oil!,” this will be a more faithful adaptation — and a new kind of screenwriting challenge — for Mr. Anderson. “It’s more secretarial,” he said. “The credit should be like ‘secretary to the author.’ ” He added that he has “a large stack of pages” and hopes to shoot next year. “But it’s no less fun. In some ways it’s just what the doctor ordered right now for me: being more selfless.”

As always, the idea is to “burrow around” (a phrase he used more than once to describe his process) to find his way into someone’s head. Mr. Anderson said, again without mentioning Mr. Pynchon by name: “It feels really good to be doing that, being a participant in his mind.”

In the interview he also talks a bit more extensively about his influences for "The Master" in regards to Scientology and how he never saw it as an "epic" but more of a "chamber drama." Read the entire thing here.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

"There Will Be Blood" was released on December 26, 2007 to rave reviews and record-breaking grosses in New York and Los Angeles. The fifth film by Paul Thomas Anderson took five long years to make its way to the screen and was unlike anything his critics or fans could've anticipated. It was his first adaptation, first film not to feature any of his usual stock company of actors and first film since "Hard Eight" to leave the Valley behind completely. If "Punch-Drunk Love" took a hard left turn from the highly controlled ensemble films he had been known for, 'Blood' showed audiences that there was no turning back. Daniel Day-Lewis' towering performance as Daniel Plainview was immediately recognized as one for the ages, his character's speech was imitated (lovingly) by many and even spawned a phrase that entered the zeitgeist. The film would be nominated for 8 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay and go on to win 2 for Best Actor (Daniel Day Lewis) and Best Cinematography for PTA's longtime cinematographer Robert Elswit.

I first saw "There Will Be Blood" at an advance screening in early December of '07 presented by the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. PTA and Daniel Day-Lewis were there for a Q&A and I spotted PTA-regular Julianne Moore in the crowd. I was seated with two rows of longtime PTA fans and when it ended I think we were all speechless. I knew I had seen something great but I didn't know at that moment it would be my favorite film of the decade. But a second, third and fourth viewing theatrically confirmed this would be the case. Each time I brought a few different friends to see the film, gathering different reactions each time and until "The Master," I hadn't seen any film that many times theatrically since. That first screening of 'Blood' will always stand out as being a special one because it was also my first (unofficial) date with my longtime girlfriend.

Where did you first see "There Will Be Blood"?
What are your favorite moments from the film?
Leave a comment below or use the hashtag #ThereWillBeBlood5 on Twitter.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Paul Thomas Anderson is a genuine auteur, a writer/director who works when he wants, makes what he wants, and is considered now to be one of the film industry’s true talents. His list of films is small but significant: Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia to Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, and now The Master, just six films in 16 years but all winning wide critical acclaim. He has five Oscar nominations, mostly for screenplay, but he did score his first directing nod for There Will Be Blood. He hopes to continue the trend with The Master, though the film has polarized audiences, something that surprised Anderson but doesn’t necessarily disappoint him. How that translates into awards is anyone’s guess, but don’t say Paul Thomas Anderson is making movies you can easily dismiss.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Awards season is rolling on and "The Master" continues to pick up accolades from various critics groups around the country. This past weekend the LA Film Critics awarded the film Best Director (Paul Thomas Anderson), Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix), Best Supporting Actress (Amy Adams) and Best Production Design (Jack Fisk & David Crank). They also named the film as Runner-Up (meaning 2nd place) for Best Film, Best Cinematography and Best Music Score. Four wins and three runner's up = not too shabby. Boston Film Critics picked up the slack by awarding the film for Best Cinematography (Mihai Malaimare Jr.) and PTA as the Runner-Up for Best Director. Well deserved. Shoutout to Awards Daily for all their great coverage. You can check out all the film's awards & nominations (so far) on this page.

Update: Washington DC Film Critics gave Philip Seymour Hoffman their Best Supporting Actor Award and Jonny Greenwood for Best Score.

In other news, PTA was mentioned yet again on Elvis Mitchell's great podcast The Treatment, this time by "Skyfall" director Sam Mendes.

"We were talking off mic a little earlier about one of the greats, Paul Thomas Anderson, who is a true auteur - and there are very few of those who I would classify as geniuses - who can write their own material and have a particular vision and take that vision from their lonely room where they're writing with their pen onto their typewriter and take it right the way through to the point where they can make the finished article. I am not one of those people and most directors are not and so you are waiting for material to arrive that speaks to you in some unconscious way and you're not always sure why you're led in one particular direction or another. And it's your duty to be open to everything to some degree and to not try and repeat yourself."

Sunday, December 02, 2012

It's December already which means that awards season is upon us. Kicking things off is Sight & Sound who have just named "The Master" as the best film of 2012. (We agree.) Very good news for the film and hopefully the first of many accolades to come. (via The Playlist) Additionally, a few video interviews with key department heads/collaborators on the film have also come to light which you can check out below for a deeper insight into how "The Master" was made. (via xixax)